


Shadow

by kuduslut (hawkeward)



Category: Guild Wars 2
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kudu Is Emotionally Constipated, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 17:05:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1395718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkeward/pseuds/kuduslut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kudu has mixed feelings about Snaff’s death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadow

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Renewal](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/42871) by Progeny Ex Machina. 



Kudu learned of his old master’s death when he visited the dim cavern of Snaff’s lab and found only Zojja.

After she threw him out—close to bodily—he gathered the rest of the story from Rata Sum’s ever-churning rumor mill. The scar across Ascalon left by the dragon’s passing, Ebonhawke and Logan Thackeray, Eir Stegalkin and Destiny’s Edge… 

Snaff.

It was strange, to think the master gone. The stumbling block on his path to recognition, the source of so many of his vexations, vanished on the wind like one of Klab’s ridiculous puffball fliers. As much as he might hate to admit it, the shadow of Snaff’s disapproval had been his constant companion ever since he left the apprenticeship. And now it was no longer there.

_No longer there, just like his voice, his laugh, the spark in his eyes at encountering a new puzzle and the hearty backslap at a job well done. He had done without those things for years, but now they were gone forever, with no hope of…_

He shook his head sharply, annoyed. There was no point in dwelling on that. Snaff’s death was the removal of an obstacle, nothing more. It should be a weight lifted off of him, the final chain of his pathetic past shaken free. Not a loss. Certainly not something to mourn.

_The fool norn lifting him from the ruins of his golem, the sylvari naif tending his body, Zojja, Zojja of all people, the one consigning him to the fire and gathering his ashes… they had no right. They had no right to take him away!_

His vision blurred. He squeezed his eyes shut, grinding the heels of his hands into them for good measure. Anyone watching would assume his watering eyes were the result of stepping from a dark room into the dazzling sun. “Bright out here today,” he muttered irritably for their hypothetical benefit.

_Miserable Zojja huddled in the dim shadows of the lab, consumed with grief, prisoner to regret—she would never use the fruit of Snaff’s genius to the maximum extent of its potential. It would be hoarded in darkness, lost to time, until even his name was utterly…_

He blinked rapidly, struggling to control himself. Snaff was nothing, true, but it would be a shame to let his ideas go to waste. That must be what he was reacting to. 

Ideas flickered through his mind. The crystal brand would provide a rich pool of new test subjects, to supplement what Risen and Destroyers could be gathered… he would need a krewe, and a facility to concentrate the collected energies for use. But he could snatch the master’s legacy from obscurity—while improving it, of course.

Let Zojja wallow. He would honor their master, and prove himself out from under his shadow at the same time.

And he would not visit again.


End file.
